The Best New Medieval Builders | City Building In 2024 & 2025

[@GamerZakh]

There are SO MANY city builders on the way, thought you'd appreciate these smaller thematic collections first. Don't miss the rest coming in the playlist though! kzbin.info/aero/PLYVqUDxY6COh7bkuJoBb1koNRX7mAX2yp

[@Fielion]

thank you so much for introducing me to the Augustus Mod! Or maybe not, i havent slept for 2 nights because of it.^^ Decades ago i loved such games, but this Mod is a whole new level!

[@Fielion]

Do you think a little landscape "terraforming" is posssible? At least for making it possible to get rid of some of the small rubble, "mountains". How often it is, that some little rubble is making it impossible to build that perfect block.

[@GeorgeMasterclass]

Lets all be honest, everyone is just dying to place Manor Lords. Played the demo the town building part of the game was phenomenal. Such potential.

[@GamerZakh]

I was most impressed with the optimisation. How the game looks that good without any lag during a demo, I don't know how they did it.

[@ericmcquisten]

agreed

[@JakopDalunde]

It’s Slavic Magic!

[@qasderfful]

Honestly not my cup of tea. I find plain medieval setting to be boring.

[@cass7448]

@@qasderfful I don't find it "boring" per se, but I do wish other historical settings would be explored more often. There's so many cool aesthetics out there that are just waiting for a talented art team to being to life.

[@wolfieinu]

Wow, Earth of Oryn looks super unique and I'm glad you brought it to our attention in this list! So many games with great potential would have gone unnoticed but for your efforts, thanks for this!

[@uros.u.novakovic]

Never saw Earth of Oryn before, but wow this looks fantastic. Definitely gonna add this to my watchlist.

[@GamerZakh]

It does look really unique, glad you found a new one!

[@earthoforyn]

Thanks! I'm so glad you like it. I'm working hard to release the game in early access around mid 2024.

[@uros.u.novakovic]

@@earthoforyn these types of games are my jam so I am familiar with many projects. Never heard of yours until this video and it instantly stood out to me from the visual perspective. Most projects in this space look very "same-y" to me nowadays. Not yours though. Looking forward to diving into it.

[@earthoforyn]

@@uros.u.novakovic Thanks a lot!

[@talelzayene3071]

​@@earthoforyn Wait you're alone developing that game??

[@sweepingtime]

I love city builders. I appreciate a lot that you're breaking up this genre by theme.

[@GamerZakh]

Glad you're enjoying them! The main city building list was just too huge to be working on over Christmas haha, thought many would only be interested in specific themes too.

[@Trgn]

Earth of Oryn looks beautiful. Love games where you can custom build your castles

[@Derogue23]

I just want a medieval “Cities: Skylines” Every naysayer says “a traffic simulator in medieval times would be really shallow.” I say “trade, flow of goods, resource movement and management, and stunning cities are the reason we play city builders”

[@jakepara]

Please some developer, read this person's comment.

[@beasley_unborn6729]

​@@jakeparaplease lawwd

[@Vaquedoso]

In my opinion, obviously Manor Lords is going to take the crown if they manage to deliver, but I've gone ahead and wishlisted Earth of Oryn. It really caught my attention!

[@lukusblack6442]

Thrive looks great, Frontier looks great. Oryn I've been waiting for. The dev keeps teasing us on Twitter with some truly stunning video and pics (most of which I've stolen for my wallpaper). I've been dying to play it.

[@supercolonygame]

Mannor Lords and Thrive look very interesting. ML has a good city building mechanic similar to City Skylines, while Thrive has a morality system, which has kinda been in Frostpunk. Looking forward to both of them.

[@_CJ_]

I watch almost all of those now :D It seems I will need longer days to have time to play them all ;D Thanks for the list

[@wsk1124]

Zakh! Happy New Year! Stay healthy! Good fortune!

[@GamerZakh]

Happy New Year! Thank you and same to you!

[@Atrahasis7]

Manor Lords looks like game of the generation for this genre if it keeps its promises. I mean expanding on it with different civilisations, like Rome etc Jesus it would be insane.

[@scapegoat_games]

I've been playing Thrive's Beta, and it feels so far from done that I'd be surprised if it came out in 2024 and wasn't incredibly broken.

[@Leon-bc8hm]

Manor lords is what I am looking for.

[@Vaalanihn_TV]

Thanks for the discovery :)

[@rivaldierista8128]

Manor Lords, i have never seen any games like this which let us design a city in a medieval era's. Aside from the Strategy, it's also good for to recreate some historic cities etc. Idk what to say, i have played it. It's not disappointing to play.

[@saniisalive]

Medieval times games ❤❤❤❤❤

[@NecroxProduction]

Manor Lords looks sooo good. Can't wait for it.

[@Ninja40K]

I hope Earth of Oryn won't be a short game like their last game Airborne Empire. It's a great game but short and getting repetitive fast. I played Farthest Frontier and enjoyed it a lot can't wait for Manor Lords, not gonna lie Earth of Oryn looks promising.

[@mihirpatel3010]

Happy new year in advance man! I pray new year brings many new opportunities for you and your family. Stay safe 😊

[@citrus2d]

You forgot to mention A Few Good Souls, Demo available. Hope to see you try it.

[@matthewsteele99]

Hoping for a continued development of Medieval Mayor one day

[@michaelmertig2897]

Whats up Gamers Great Channel for Info just found it

[@deLeonGuitarStudio]

One that should be on this list is "Going Medieval". Good list though.

[@GamerZakh]

Thanks! That one doesn't quite fall into the city builder category, but I list it in other places.

[@deLeonGuitarStudio]

@@GamerZakh How is it not a city builder? That is literally what it is. From what I can tell, It has nearly identical mechanics to the games you showed. If it's not a city builder game, what is it?

[@GamerZakh]

@@deLeonGuitarStudio First it should be said, there's no hard rules or complete consensus for genre definitions. Every single person has their own personal definition and genres are all made up, so you aren't wrong to think Going Medieval is a city builder. But basically, Going Medieval is like Rimworld and more like a colony sim/base builder. The main difference is do you place houses or do you place beds? A city builder you build buildings, a colony sim you build walls. Otherwise Rimworld, Oxygen Not Included, and Dwarf Fortress would be city builders too and I don't think they are either. Edit: Just for some other references, Going Medieval's Steam description starts with, "Stake your claim in this colony building sim". The description tells you to "Defend Your Colony" and refers to your people as "colonists". The developers intend it to be a colony sim.

[@deLeonGuitarStudio]

@@GamerZakh I think I can see there is an important difference, but not so much the one you stated. You do in fact build buildings & cities in Rimworld for example, but much of the emphasis of the game is on the colonists themselves, whereas the ones you call city builders seem to be primarily focused on the design of the actual city, with much less attention on the individual inhabitants. But different city builders vary the amount of attention they give to the people living in the city, and how much you control them. I'm currently playing Medieval Dynasty btw, and what would you call that? Clearly the largest focus of the game is building up your village/city, but it also has a lot of focus placed on managing the individual villagers. It also blends in an open world RPG. It's still at it's core a city builder though. But it goes beyond the scope of most top down view city builder games. I think you could argue that many city builders are NOT colony sims, but most colony sims ARE city builders as well. ONI is a bad example for this though as clearly there is no city being built and it's more about survival and colony management, but Going Medieval is both a colony sim & a city builder if we are being 100% accurate.

[@GamerZakh]

@@deLeonGuitarStudio Well like I said, everyone has their own definitions, so yours is not wrong but there's always a lot of other perspectives. For city builders, a view from above is a part of it. So Medieval Dynasty is not typically considered a city building game and is usually thought of as a survival colony builder. See game genres aren't literal, a city building game doesn't just mean every game where a city is built. Much like how so many RPGs don't have any actual role-playing in them. Because 'RPG' also entails 'rpg mechanics', systems that are associated with RPG games besides role playing (levelling, classes, xp) and can make a game an RPG even without it's literal meaning. Genre names are thematic labels with a loose concensus on what they mean, so a dictionary definition of the words doesn't always fit. That's why when you say a city builder is literally what it is, it doesn't mean that it's a 'city building game', even if it's a game which includes the building of a city. Another issue is accuracy, which you mentioned. The problem is the more accurate the genre definition, the fewer games you include in it. The most accurate genre definition only includes 1 game. It's the roguelike problem, where the official definition of a 'roguelike' basically only fits Rogue itself. So we call every other game like Rogue 'roguelites', but then what's the point of having a roguelike genre? As soon as you have 2 games in a genre, there is already enough room for interpretation to draw the line anywhere because the two games will have a number of differences that could be used to argue any game into that genre. It's why you can actually argue any game into any genre. You can call any game in existence a 'strategy game' because all games need strategy. Medieval Dynasty can be an FPS, RPG, Survival, Colony Sim, Tycoon, Management, Strategy, Life Sim, Farming Sim, and more if we take the game literally. Generally though it's like I said. If you're placing individual beds for people, it's a colony sim. If you're placing whole houses, it's a city builder. There are exceptions but when the developers themselves clearly label their game as a colony sim, you should bring it up with them if you want it to be labelled something else. I have my own reasons, but I also agree with the devs.

[@sokarash]

Manor Lords seems very promising and promises a lot, but I'm still a bit careful. The demo was good, but also only showed a very small slice. Lots of features like diplomacy, provinces and combat were missing. And with so many features, its not unlikely to one be undercooked, especially if developed by a solo dev (even though I suspect he is not completly alone, getting help for specific stuff like music or modelling is common these days). Plus it releases in Early Access, which sometimes is a excuse to ship an underdeveloped product. Foundation has been in EA for close to five years and still is quite rough around the edges (progress yes but also kinda slow). So I'm putting on the breaks of the hype train for this one. Not saying that its gonna fail, just keep the hype a in check. Also have been burned too many times by oberhyped games. Plus with this approach, if its good, it feels even better. If it falls short, you're not that disappointed.

[@HinFoo]

my personal favourite is ostriv

[@GamerZakh]

Oh yeah that's good, I just generally stop listing games in early access for longer than 4 years unless there's nothing else new or there's huge news about it.

[@HinFoo]

@@GamerZakh yea i understand, they did drop a little patch in december at least so its going forward, but its probably not easy living and working in ukraine.

[@MisogynyMan]

You're doing good work my man. I'm always excited when I see these videos show up in my feed.

[@chrishaugh1655]

Speaking of TAB, we need a TAB2 like yesterday...

[@MrAad1989]

I must say. All looks great. But I’m so tired of grid based city/colony games. A bit disappointed to see more grid based games. That’s why I’m exited for manor lords. I looks and feels so much more authentic as soon as I’m not bound by those **ing squares. Farthest frontiers did it to and I just couldn’t get in to it because it al felt way to similar to all the other games.

[@sokarash]

I also think its a shame that the studio behind Distant Kingdoms has apprently faltered a while ago during EA. It can't be bought anymore and can only be checked out through some more dubious sources. Looked like a promising Medival-Fantasy-Anno with bit of a Pen&Paper twist thrown in for good measure.

[@GamerZakh]

Yeah I made a video on that and listed it when it was in development. They unfortunately couldn't keep it going and got shut down.

[@byronbuonamici3160]

Can you build castles in manor lords, if not, will you be able to?

[@Groaznic]

Farthest frontier is GOAT!

[@Jermo25]

I'm new to PC gaming I'm trying to find a city building game thats kind of like call of dragons or clash of clans. Games that have like alliances and fighting in it. Any suggestions?

[@GamerZakh]

Hmm city-building with a bit of combat but just a step up from games like that? An upcoming one you might like is called Citadelum. Manor Lords and Farthest Frontier are both similar and both good, but they're more complex and could be kind of a big jump from clash of clans. If you're into them they're good though.

[@Jermo25]

@@GamerZakh thank you! 🙏🏾

[@qasderfful]

Out of curiosity, why didn't you mention Foundation this time? Even tho it's all over the intro. Just my usual question :D

[@GamerZakh]

I generally have a cutoff of 4 years in early access to keep calling a game 'upcoming' or 'new'. I make exceptions if there's huge news or if there's nothing else to talk about like with The Universim finally releasing after 10 years, but I've listed and covered Foundation for so many years now already. If I don't have a cutoff, the lists are all exactly the same every year and they get super bloated. Right now, the main city building list has 35 games listed and that's after I've taken out about 10 games that have been in early access for 4+ years.

[@qasderfful]

@@GamerZakh I see. Thank you for a comprehensive answer. Yeah, at this point whoever is interested in medieval citybuilders is likely to know about Foundation.

[@larrote6467]

foundation was a disappointment; I won't get into the details, but they they completely shifted gears and changed audiences to the point that they abandoned a lot of the content; now they even have a new roadmap and for a while they've been doing mostly eye candy content@@qasderfful

[@qasderfful]

@@larrote6467 please do go onto details!

[@Lex_Koncord]

Now we're talking low poly > pixel art

[@ezcyberpup]

are you going to be playing any of these games yourself for youtube?

[@GamerZakh]

It depends how they turn out, I can't really plan that far ahead but I would most likely at least check out Manor Lords.

[@Tokru86]

I'm kind of fed up with all these "city" builders where you at most can build a medium village with a few dozen people. This trend to simulate each inhabitant for some reason has to go away. It seriously hinders the genre because real cities are not possible with such a system because it gets too complex and tedious gameplay wise or too demanding on cpu power.

[@GamerZakh]

City builder is a genre name for a collection of game mechanics. We could split it to 'village builders', 'town builders', 'city builders', and 'megacity builders', but that just gets messy and no one would use such niche genre names, so they all fall under 'city builder' because that's how it's always been. SimTown was a few dozen simulated people and it's from 1995 and the creator of SimCity, but still called a city-builder. It didn't hinder the genre though. Try to remember the city building genre was almost fully dead for years until Banished. A game with low population and individually simulated people. That blew up and everyone came rushing back to the genre. The kind of city builder you dislike is the kind of city builder that revived the genre, and is why so many new ones are like that. Considering the huge continued success and quality of games like Timberborn, Against The Storm, and Frostpunk, this is clearly an approach that people want and enjoy.

[@hazzanafrika]

It's been a while since Manor Lords should have come out. Oh hey, I just saw that the devs are on patreon... everything is self-explanatory... Too bad, it will be outdated when they release it.

[@GamerZakh]

When do you think it should've released? It'll be out in a few months now and it doesn't seem like it'll be outdated in any particular way.

[@hazzanafrika]

@@GamerZakh When I think he should have come out? Not ten years after they started teasing it. IF ! It's coming out in a few months as they say, because "in a few months" we know the drill... we'll have to see how it works on patreon... Until the game is released, it's a bit like they're getting paid by the hour... with no one to watch over them...

[@GamerZakh]

@@hazzanafrika Manor Lords was announced mid-2020, it's only been 3 and a half years since the very first announcement and will release before the 4 year mark. 4 years from first announcement to release is a very typical timeline. And no one to watch over them? They have a publisher, Hooded Horse. They literally have someone watching over them and their reputation and profits are also tied to Manor Lords not messing up. It's not even like we haven't played some of the game, 2023 had the free city-building demo. We all played it and it looked and played great, for the city building part at least.

[@FineWine-v4.0]

Have you tried out an RTS game called "Ground Control 2: Operation Exodus" ??? Seems like a good alternative to Command & Conquer (It's on GOG)

[@ryushogun9890]

I just wanna know what is the first game in the intro

[@GamerZakh]

That's Foundation

[@ryushogun9890]

@@GamerZakh thanks.

[@josegarciamaceo6579]

Farthest frontier no se habia estrenado hace tiempo?

[@GamerZakh]

Sólo si consideras que se liberará el acceso anticipado.

[@josegarciamaceo6579]

@@GamerZakh entiendo, gracias

[@Zyzyx442]

1. Manor Lords 2. Earth of Oryn Rest look kinda meh imo, also feel like survival city building should have stopped with the release of Sierra's Zeus, before Zeus most city building games were just survival (defensive) but in Zeus we could send out army to attack and conquer the world map, if I want TD Tower Defense game then I will play that, but if you make a city builder then FFS add more than just survival play mode. For example I would have loved if Stronghold rerelease let you build much larger scale and send out your army on a world map and have "offensive siege" battles supported by ones town/city/castle instead of just SP missions where you build small scale castles in only defense mode or one off offensive siege missions where you are given a set amount of soldiers you didn't make yourself. personal preference but very little innovation in city building, based on most new city builders it even looks like the City Builder type of games is regressing and simplifying even without catering to Mobile Gamers.

[@alsimoosq1582]

Want to see a list of Builder game's in 2024? Open 2023 list

[@GamerZakh]

Currently on the full city building list I'm working on, I've got 35 games and 2/3 of them I've never mentioned before ever.

[@crishark17]

You forgot the best Noble Fates

[@GamerZakh]

I would consider that more colony sim/base builder than a city builder.

[@donaldpetersen2382]

Man despite the clear efforts no one can make another Banished. An there were a *WHOLE LOT* of attempts to copy it over the past decade.

[@GamerZakh]

Timberborn has been really successful and is rated higher than Banished on Steam. Foundation also is very popular. Basically the whole survival city builder subgenre is spawned from Banished, so games like Frostpunk, Surviving Mars/Aftermath, Endzone, and Kingdoms Reborn are all pretty successful games inspired by Banished.

[@Vaquedoso]

@@GamerZakh Recently Against the Storm as well

[@krieg938]

what is the game in the intro?

[@GamerZakh]

That's Foundation, technically still in early access but for 5 years, so I don't count that as an upcoming game anymore.

[@RyanJosepher]

I feel like furthest frontier's optimization is very poor.

[@simulationPC]

Manor Lords is far away and top AAA compared with the other games purposed

[@Amoth_oth_ras_shash]

sighs... honestly i take a clone of they are billions in what ever the fk setting ..that just have dam STANDARD SAVE & LOAD functions that I DECIDE how to use :/ dam 'iron man' only mode for they are billions killed it for me..

[@GamerZakh]

I'm not sure which have save and load features, but there are a lot of games like they are billions. Diplomacy is Not an Option, Age of Darkness, and Alien Marauder are some notable ones.

[@sokarash]

@@GamerZakh I would add Becastled to this list.

[@Amoth_oth_ras_shash]

@@GamerZakh i know there is a couple clones so to speak that more or lees is the same studio or mirroring ones ..wich saddly though suffers the same ''iron man mode only'' drawback though true diplomacy is not an option might be a good candidate i havent cheeked on that in a long while hmm though even if cheeking i suppose shrot of buying it and playing way longer then the ''you can return it'' limit allows it be impossible to cheek it got proper player/customer controlled save/load functions aka dear old aoe2 dont suppose you have a copy to make a leets play of ;) havent heard of or forgot alien maruader though neat always nice with a title to explore i hoppe someone made a lets play of it

[@Amoth_oth_ras_shash]

@@sokarash bescatled.. dam ,that both feels so familiar yet i cant recall anything about it old or new title ?

[@Hlodolog]

Maybe i've seen and played too many strategies already, but i can't help but feel that they all look the same. Just one second of "Settlements rising" and i'm already bored. Even the name is so generic even mobile game devs would reject it. Oryn and Manor lords at least create a slightly more unique feeling, first with graphics, second with gameplay. But is there a solid ground for that feeling? I'm considering trying Farthest frontier ATM, but i'm quite sceptical.

[@GamerZakh]

Games have always looked the same really, it's just the more we play the more we notice it. Think of our parents always saying that new music always sounded the same, it's that phenomena.

[@Hlodolog]

@@GamerZakh Or maybe there are far more devs than before and sooner or later you simply run out of original ideas. Also, many of them don't have time/resources to create unique graphics. But yes, your idea has some ground too. Maybe it's time for some reflection.

[@GamerZakh]

@@Hlodolog I keep looking into it because my generation keeps saying that all new games are copies or clones, so I look into what people love from the past and I always find an older game they copied too. I recently found out that even Pong was a stolen Magnavox clone that got sued. Castle Wolfenstein from 1981 copied Berzerk. Civ 1 was basically Empire plus Incunabula. Total War copied Lords of the Realm. Minecraft stole Infiniminer's design and idea. Even the soulsverse games are lookalikes. Modern soulslike comes from Demon's Souls, which is from their King's Field series that goes back to 1994. King's Field was FromSoftware's first game and they made it after playing Wizardry, which feels very soulsverse if you look at it and that goes back to 1981. Things only seem original when you don't know what they copied.

[@Hlodolog]

@@GamerZakh Whoa, that... gives me mixed feelings. It's quite cool. But also sad. But also some sort of unexplainable pride, since all of these genres have a "founder" whose legacy keeps going on. Have you considered making a video about this? "Game genres' history" or maybe "Popular games' predecessors"?

[@GamerZakh]

@@Hlodolog I have thought of it but people tend to get very angry when I tell them their favourite game was a copy haha. It would be a lot of work making the video but also the aftermath will be messy.

[@UCFElCarnicero]

Going Medieval?

[@GamerZakh]

That's a colony sim so it goes in a different list.

[@UCFElCarnicero]

Point taken! @@GamerZakh

[@SylvanFeanturi]

I wish Farthest Frontier was available on GoG :(

[@TOP10-Creation]

Manor lords >>>> All

[@czjmaster]

Pls make Top Blockchain Games, thanks gg

[@TheManCaveMike]

1 2 and 3 only have demos. 4 and 5 have no demos and number 4 doesnt even have a 2024 release date. Number 6 came out in 2022. (great game btw) Not sure how this can be the best came when none are yet released or were released in 2022

[@GamerZakh]

This is an upcoming games list, so by definition if a game has released it can't be here. And that only released in 2022 if you consider early access released. Do you? If yes then you gotta define the difference between early access and a demo.

[@cervelex]

all copy cat games nothing interesting

[@GamerZakh]

All games are copy cat games. Even your favourites are copy cats, it's just as we age we start to see the pattern. Total War copied Lords of the Realm. Civilization copied Empire and Incunabula. Minecraft copied Infiniminer. Timberborn copied Banished. Bioshock copied System Shock. Castle Wolfenstein copied Berzerk. C&C was a Dune 2 reskin. I mean, I recently found out that even Pong was a stolen clone and was sued for it.